Vanessa Brousseau is a multidisciplinary artist and advocate whose practice involves working with sealskin, beads and other materials, as well as creating videos for TikTok. Originally from Sanikiluaq, NU, Brousseau has lived all across Ontario.
Brousseau has been an advocate for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit People (MMIWG2S) movement for many years, following the disappearance of her own sister, Pamela Holopainen, on December 13, 2003. She got her start as an artist more recently, when she was stuck inside during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bored at home, she saw a non-Indigenous person, a large content creator on TikTok, sharing information about MMIWG2S. “I thought, ‘that should be coming from me,’” she says, and began her channel, @resilientinuk, sharing stories about her sister and herself. [1] Simultaneously, Brousseau was growing her artistic skills. Having moved to Ottawa, ON, months before in order to connect with Inuit in the area, Brousseau found herself instead connecting with local Elders via Zoom. “They taught me so much,” she says, particularly about sealskin. Brousseau’s mother, Holly Kowtook, was also an artist, but she predominantly worked with beads and rocks. Although Brousseau didn’t place much value on her mother’s work in her younger years, she has since come to view Kowtook’s work as an inspiration for her own practice today. “I’m really glad I saved some of her pieces,” she says.
Both her TikTok work and the sealskin pieces she creates now—which include jewellery, kamiik and even her own sealskin skirt and sealskin drum case—have an activist core, often denoted by the presence of a red dress, one of the key symbols of the MMIWG2S movement. “I try to incorporate the red dress so I can spread awareness and create change,” Brousseau says. “It’s a beautiful way to honor and remember our stolen sisters. I think that’s how they deserve to be remembered.” Of all the mediums she has been trying, sewing sealskin by hand has become her favourite due to the therapeutic benefits she derives from the repetitive nature of the practice, the sound of the thread and the end result she can achieve. Brousseau has begun stretching her skills to new items like clothing and a drum case, both to grow as an artist and to meet her own needs. The drum case in particular she created to make carrying her traditional Inuit drum to marches and advocacy events easier. In addition to taking inspiration from her mother, Brousseau has gathered a circle of artist friends like April Allen, Taalrumiq/Christina King and Inuk 360 who all work alongside one another and support each other in their practices.
Brousseau was part of the National Screen Institute’s 2021 Accelerator for Indigenous Creators, and in 2022 had her first exhibition, The Red Dress Exhibit, at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catherine’s. In 2023 received a grant to purchase printers that let her add graphics to hats, cups and t-shirts, the start of her own merchandise line. In future, she hopes to get an even bigger printer that will let her take those designs to blankets, towels, flags and other large objects. She also hopes to create a six foot sealskin dress that she can bring to powwows and other events as an eye-catching way to spread awareness about her cause. “I’m always trying to push myself outside my limits and grow as an artist,” she says about what’s next. “I put a lot of passion into my work.”